Titanic display provokes emotional response

Danielle Hatch

Tuesday

May 26, 2009 at 12:01 AMMay 26, 2009 at 8:01 AM

More people have been to outer space than have journeyed 2.5 miles below the ocean surface to view one of the most famous shipwrecks in history. Even so, when Lowell Lytle got the opportunity to tag along on a salvage mission to the Titanic in 2000, he had no idea the experience would move him so deeply.

More people have been to outer space than have journeyed 2.5 miles below the ocean surface to view one of the most famous shipwrecks in history. Even so, when Lowell Lytle got the opportunity to tag along on a salvage mission to the Titanic in 2000, he had no idea the experience would move him so deeply.

"Every emotion that could go through a human being went through me," said Lytle, who rolls into The Shoppes at Grand Prairie June 5 to 7 with the "Titanic: Treasures from the Deep" mobile museum. The free exhibit includes more than 50 pieces from the famous oceanliner, which sank in the Atlantic Ocean on April 15, 1912, two hours and 40 minutes after hitting an iceberg. The wreck is located 963 miles northeast of New York.

"I felt excited, I was scared, I was exuberated, I felt depressed," Lytle said. "I felt lonely; there were only two other people with me and the rest of the world is 2.5 miles above you. It was a scary experience."

And it was an experience that Lytle just barely got, as salvage missions usually are reserved for scientists. Lytle, who bears an eerie resemblance to Titanic captain Edward John Smith, was working as an actor portraying him in an exhibit when he heard his employer - RMS Titanic Inc., the company that owns salvage rights - was readying for another mission. He begged to be included but was shot down three separate times.

"I just did not give up," Lytle said. "Finally I said, 'You need to send me down. I'm the captain of the Titanic, I'm in front of the camera, I'm the one who's talking about the exhibit. I believe if the media could say this man's been down in the Titanic, more people would have an interest in what I have to say about your exhibit.'"

Lytle became the 109th person to travel to the wreck. He and two other men made the 12-hour round-trip journey in a titanium sphere about six feet in diameter.

"It's like three grown men sitting in the front seat of a Volkswagen, except there's no place to sit, you're all cramped up and you're on your elbow," he said.

But the view was incredible. He saw huge sheets of metal (65 feet long and 40 feet high, he estimates) twisted like pretzels. Debris was scattered about in the stillness of the ocean floor: suitcases, perfectly stacked dishes that were packed in wooden crates when the ship went down, crates that have long since disintegrated.

"I tried to stay focused on (the salvage mission) and not get emotionally involved, but after about an hour, you look and you see a shoe and you see a hat, and it just all of a sudden hit me, how difficult it would be for me to say goodbye to my wife and children knowing I'd never see them again," Lytle said.

"You've got the wealthiest people in the world, you've got the poorest people. They're all gathered together in one climactic end, and they have two and a half hours to think about what they're going to do. The last 30 minutes had to be hell for those men on board the Titanic."

Liz Ceaser, spokeswoman for the exhibit, said items include everything from a gold-and-diamond stick pin of a first-class passenger to cuff links, hairbrushes, fountain pens and currency.

"There is actually quite a bit of currency that they've recovered, because if it was kept in a leather wallet, the tanning process that they used on the leather protected the wallet from the micro-organisms that eat away at it underwater," Ceaser said. "Any time they found a leather bag or leather wallet, the items inside were incredibly well-preserved when normally that would be lost."

Some items in the mobile museum are part of a larger exhibit, "Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition," which is set up for months at a time in museums around the world. Ceaser said the company is constantly introducing new artifacts and rotating them between exhibits, so even if a visitor has viewed the larger exhibit, there will be new pieces.

Lytle said visitors will feel like they are on board the Titanic as they view different classrooms. The tour is set up so each visitor gets the name of a passenger or crew member who was on the Titanic in 1912. At the end of the exhibit, visitors will discover the fate of their passenger.

"I watch people's reactions, (some) get so wrapped up in it," Lytle said. "Some will jump up and down when they find out that (their passenger) lived. Others, I've seen them burst into tears. It's an emotional thing. It makes no difference how old you are, people are just enthralled with it."

Danielle Hatch can be reached at (309) 686-3262 or dhatch@pjstar.com.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.